Western Tradition

On Loving Definitions

I first came across Russell Kirk’s belief that academics must serve as guardians of “the Word” in his groundbreaking but now sadly-neglected book, Academic Freedom: An Essay in Definition (1955). “The principle support to academic freedom,...

Is Specialization Killing Culture?

If culture is simply a matter of private enthusiasms and hobbies, of small details and specialties, then what of a common culture? What about the collective project and shared sense of purpose that built Western civilization? “The...

Banning Books and Burning Heretics

Advocates of the liberal arts include “heretical" books in the great conversation, whereas political liberals seek to silence them as dangerous. As we have seen in Nazi Germany and in communist countries, the banning of “heretical” books ends with the burning of “heretics”…

The Classics and Christianity

Christians invented the classical curriculum; it is as much part of the broader Western inheritance as it is specifically part of the Christian inheritance... Why study old books? How do dusty old books written by dead men...

Counterpoint and Why It Matters

In music, there has arisen in recent times the illusion that knowledge is not necessary, that the old forms of discipline are merely obstacles to the true creative process, and that real originality means doing your own thing, free from traditional constraints…

Liberty and Liberal Education

Free citizens are necessarily invited to follow the Delphic injunction, “know thyself,” that is addressed to all mankind; and their success or failure in responding to this invitation is crucial for the preservation or loss of their liberty...

To Be Unfit for the Modern World

The Great Tradition patiently endures, ready to speak on its own behalf, ready to challenge narrow prejudices, ready to examine those with the courage to be interrogated by it, ready to teach those who are willing to be made unfit for the modern world... The...

Tradition: The Concept and Its Claim Upon Us

True unity among men must have its roots in that common participation in the holy tradition reaching back to an utterance of God Himself... One wonders whether tradition is not actually anti-historical. It stands in stark contrast...

God, Jonah Goldberg, and the Suicide of the West

Jonah Goldberg terms a "miracle" the great wealth that has been produced by the West since the middle of the eighteenth century. But will the miracle that is the West give way to the suicide of the West? Ah, that is the question he attempts to answer in his...

Is the West Worth Defending?

We should respond to the question of whether the West is worth defending by first asking the more important question of which West it is that we are being asked to defend... There are many people who...

Charles Lindbergh’s Philosophy of Vital Instinct

The heightened pace of life in industrial societies, Charles Lindbergh realized, necessitated reflection on what type of life is best suited for man. Which of the two, reason or vital instinct, constitutes the best function of human beings? Which of the two contributes best to man's happiness...

A Thinker You Should Know: Eric Voegelin

Eric Voegelin’s philosophical framework attempted to break down the ideological barriers to the search for order and the recovery of transcendent consciousness... Eric Voegelin's work is not well known outside a relatively small group of academics and their...

Christian, Therefore, Conservative

The great tradition of Western culture has proven peculiarly absorptive; it has brought influences from many disparate sources into a rich conversation. But it is Christianity that has for centuries formed its core. And it is, above all, this core to which “conservatism at its highest” remains...

“Crime and Punishment”: A Timeless Psychological Masterpiece

“There are chance meetings with strangers that interest us from the first moment, before a word is spoken,” writes Dostoevsky in Crime and Punishment. And such is the impression made upon us by Dosteovsky’s incredible psychological masterpiece... “Personally, I require a ceiling, although a high one....